Dead Reckoning

This hard-boiled thriller stars Humphrey Bogart, with sultry Lizabeth Scott as the duplicitous dame. The plot's very ordinary - war veteran Bogart trying to find out who killed his buddy - but the dialogue is as sharp as a razor: in one scene, Bogie confides of chanteuse Scott, "Maybe she was all right, and maybe Christmas comes in July." Watch out for America's greatest King Lear, Morris Carnovsky, playing a villainous nightclub owner - it was one of his last roles before he was blacklisted during the McCarthy-era witch-hunts. With this talent at his disposal, director John Cromwell steps back and lets his cast get on with it.